1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to improvements to the performance of business processes. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and techniques for identifying the transactional losses within a business process in order to increase the efficiency of the business process.
2. The Relevant Technology
Historically, a broad set of metrics has been developed to help determine the efficiency of a manufacturing process. These metrics can help to improve a manufacturing process by identifying key areas towards which to focus in order to improve the efficiency of a process. In general, these metrics help identify wasteful manufacturing steps and eliminate them in order to create a continuous flow of operations to meet customer's expectations. For example, since the 1950s, the Japanese automobile industry has generally adopted and refined similarly defined metrics to improve their manufacturing efficiency.
More recently, attempts have been made with limited success to apply these broad set of metrics to include more general business processes. The service industry has been able to adopt these broad set of metrics to help improve their respective industries. For instance, the healthcare, banking, transportation, and other service industries have been able to apply these broad set of metrics to make their respective operations more efficient.
However, some of these business processes include the use of computers to accomplish various tasks within the processes. Difficulty in the application of the broad set of metrics to these business processes that include the use of computers have limited the usefulness of these set of metrics. In general, the operational use of the computers and their resulting products were not easily transformed into quantifiable measurements that fit within these broad set of metrics used to determine efficiency of a manufacturing process. As such, these historical broad set of metrics could not be applied to improving business processes that involved the use of computers.
As a result, new improvements to historical metrics are necessary to help identify wasteful steps in business processes that involve the use of computers.